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Journalism of Courage
The resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law amid a scandal over paedophile priests is a dismal end to an extraordinary career started in the heat and protest of civil rights advocacy in the US deep South and eventually touched the highest rungs of church power in Rome.
It is a deep fall for Law, who was warmly welcomed as a bishop of great promise when he arrived to take over the Boston archdiocese in 1984. The Harvard-educated orthodox theologian was tailor-made to lead the Catholic stronghold.
He was loyal to the Pope, he had administrative experience, he was familiar with Boston from his days at Harvard and as an outsider he would be able to bring objectivity and financial order to a diocese that had suffered grievously during the school de-segregation riots of the 1970s, Boston College professor and church historian Thomas O’Connor wrote in his 1998 book Boston Catholics.
‘‘Bright, affable and compassionate, the new prelate made friends easily, moved about the archdiocese actively, displayed an early and serious concern for poor and homeless persons and almost immediately set out to establish relations with the increasing number of ‘new’ immigrants,’’ O’Connor wrote.
But it ended on Friday. Law stepped down, having become a central figure in the worst crisis to hit the Roman Catholic Church in America — the alleged cover up by church officials of sexual abuse of children by priests. The cardinal offered the Pope his resignation after it became clear he could not quell a revolt by his own priests who seethed as internal church files showed Law and other archdiocese leaders knew about the abuse and kept it secret.
The latest calls for Law’s departure came after thousands of pages of church personnel files released over the past two weeks described adulterous relationships, paedophilia and drug use involving archdiocese clergy — and indicated church leaders reassigned priests with records of sexual misconduct.
‘‘In my most horrible nightmares, I would never have imagined we would have come to the situation we are in today,’’ Law said at a meeting earlier this year. ‘‘I stand before you recognizing the trust many of you had in me has been broken, and it has been broken because of decisions for which I was responsible’’. ‘‘With all my heart, I am sorry for that,’’ he added. (Reuters)
